“Space Force” may not work

America needs to modernize and beef up its defensive presence in outer space but probably not in the way President Donald Trump envisions, a University of Colorado professor with long-standing ties to NASA said Tuesday.

Trump on Monday said he wants to create a “Space Force” as a sixth service, adding to the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps and Coast Guard.

The new branch would use satellites and new technologies to fight the country’s enemies in space much as the existing branches wage war on the air, sea and ground.

“It is not enough to merely have an American presence in space, we must have American dominance in space,” Trump said at a meeting of the National Space Council. “We are going to have the Air Force and we are going to have the space force, separate but equal, it is going to be something.”

There is little doubt America faces military challenges in space, including using aging and vulnerable satellites that are key to this country’s communication systems, Jack Burns, professor at CU Boulder’s department of astrophysical and planetary sciences, said. Burns previously served on the Trump administration’s NASA transition team and he studies the design of astronomical observations on the moon and how they might act as platforms for scientific research.

While America’s satellites need upgrades, China and Russia are using military technology to make ominous moves in space, Burns said. Recently, China launched a kinetic rocket that successfully blew up one of its own satellites.

“What both China and Russia are doing right now is particularly worrisome,” Burns said. “One of our satellites could be shot out of the sky by another country. We have satellites now over important hot spots and GPS satellites that are all particularly vulnerable.”

But using smaller, more technologically advanced satellites will probably solve most of America’s problems in space and not a newly christened “star fleet,” he said. “I don’t think we are talking about setting up a Star Fleet Academy with humans in space manning weapons.”

The added financial cost to the United States would be enormous, Burns said. He agrees with Defense Secretary James Mattis that such a venture is “just not needed right now.”